A year and a half ago: Read prior post first

I wanted to write this in a second post because it is somewhat of a tangent on what I was saying, and this is a blog, not a novel. Anyways, lets imagine me in the summer of 2006.

I've never seen it, but I know one quote from Vanilla Sky thanks to Jason, "Because without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain't as sweet." And a good quote is only good with a justification. A bitter to sweet or vice versa experience grounds you. It has the ability to make your life solid. You appreciate the sweet richly and take the bitter as what must be, to welcome life's challenge.

In this Summer of 06 I hit my bottom. I felt as if everyone was disgusted with me, I could not find a job, no money, a very unsure and scary future, the anxiety was killing me on the inside and it was just getting worse making me unable to cope with many things and shunning almost all responsibilty, it was among other things depression. Looking back, only two things I did that summer were good. One thing was that I started going to church again occasionally, it was a renewed sense of structure and something to really digest weekly. The other was my trip to a beautiful fountain on the University of Michigan campus:

I started my journey to the fountain as a "penny walk with two friend" you flip a coin to decide where you turn until you find yourself back at home...well the three of us, me, a housemate and our friend decided to end up in a fountain that no one knew meant so much to me. The fountain is inbetween the main campus and the Grad Student building. When I was an incoming freshmen, my group walked towards the main campus and were told that when we graduated we should walk through it towards the Grad Building in an obvious metaphor. This fountain was special to me.

Now, not everyone is religious or superstitious, but it really doesn't matter, it should still make some sense to anyone. When I go to a fountain, I treat pennies as prayers. I don't ask for money, or a job, or more love...I ask for things that make my soul feel warm. That night, unknown to my fellow travelers, I needed to be alone with my thoughts and every once-in-a-while I would throw in one of a few pennies. As always, I prayed for the well-being of those I was there with. I then prayed that Tryson have the most beautiful life, the same for Stashia, another for everyone who still believed in me, and at least two or three for the strength to do what I needed to do to end my depression to finish school and to help others. It was a great night and walking back I felt stronger having set somethings straight in my mind.

Writting this now brings tears to my eye, all of my prayers have been answered and many that I did not even have hope for came along with them to help. Since then my favorite prayer for my self or for anyone has been the strength and ability to understand find their own joy. As I said in the other post, joy is different than happiness. If I had prayed for money and gotten it, I would have been happy on the outside. Happiness unfortunately doesn't last. Joy is what comes from the enjoyment of doing work you love, helping those you love and similar things. Ever since I had started to attain this joy from the inside it has snowballed and nothing external can disrupt it. I pray you all find your joy, for when the bitter is at it's very worst, you may keep your sweet center always.